We woke up early and dropped off the jeep off at the car rental in San Pedro before meeting a driver who would take us across the border to meet our guide in Bolivia.  Chilean guides aren't allowed to operate in Boliva and vice versa, so there's always this system of being picked up in a van or minibus, taken though Chilean border control (just outside San Pedro) and then into Bolivia through their border control at the foot of Licancabur Volcano.  Here, people meet their guides and continue the rest of the way in very sturdy 4x4s.

We'd gone through an agency called Ruta Verde to organise a private trip.  Usually the jeeps are crammed with 4 to 6 people, but I knew that would make it much more difficult for me to stop where I wanted for how long I wanted to take photos, so we'd managed to arrange a tour and pretty much specified where we wanted to go and for how long (for example, I wanted to spend 2 nights at Salar de Uyuni).  Our guide was Raul, a native of Uyuni, who'd been guiding people around this part of Bolivia for 10 years.

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